Hotels May Avert Strike

LAS VEGAS —  Unions representing culinary workers and bartenders agreed to a five-year deal Monday with hotel-casino giant MGM Mirage Inc., probably averting a strike on the Strip.

The agreement reached early Monday means that about 35,000 of the 47,000 workers represented by Culinary Local 226 and Bartenders Local 165 have tentative deals with the Las Vegas hotels, said John Wilhelm, chief union negotiator.

A strike Saturday is still a possibility, pending the results of negotiations with the owners of smaller Strip and downtown Las Vegas properties. However, “it would appear that we’ve averted a citywide strike,” said Mike Sloan, senior vice president of Mandalay Resort Group. His company reached agreement with the unions Sunday.

The union had reached agreements Thursday with Park Place Entertainment Corp., Harrah’s Entertainment Inc. and the Tropicana.

“We’re very pleased to have good contract settlements with all four of the largest companies, plus the Tropicana,” Wilhelm said. Ratification votes have not been scheduled, he said, but should come within the next two weeks. If the votes are scheduled after the Friday settlement deadline and Saturday strike date, possible job action would be postponed, he added.

The five contracts have provisions specific to individual properties. However, each calls for $3.23-an-hour increases in wages and benefits over the life of the contracts. Wilhelm said current wages and benefits average $14.17 an hour.

The contracts call for the companies to continue paying health benefits, and promise housekeepers better working conditions.

Talks are continuing with hotel-casino owner Boyd Gaming Corp. and 14 other properties on the Strip and downtown, Wilhelm said.

Alan Feldman, spokesman for MGM Mirage, said executives at the Strip’s largest employer “never had any doubt that we would reach agreement.”

“Our employees are far too valuable to us,” Feldman said.

Sloan called the deal the most expensive the industry has had with the culinary union in Las Vegas--notable as the tourism-dependent city continues to recover from a tourism slump after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11.

“But it’s a contract we can live with,” Sloan said.

Feldman called it likely that other hotel-casino companies would follow suit, but said it wasn’t clear if some smaller downtown Las Vegas properties could afford similar contracts. The union chief and both casino executives called ratification by union rank-and-file likely because member committees have unanimously endorsed each deal.